Dimension Identification in Data Warehouse Based on Activity Theory

Abstract: Nowadays, business intelligence techniques are applied more and more often in different settings including corporations and organizations both in the private and public sector. It is really a broad field which can assist business people to realize the state of their organization and make profitable decisions. In this thesis, I will focus on one of its components, data warehouse, by proposing activity theory as the method to solve the dimension identification problem in data warehouse. Under the background of project IMIS and the involved personnel, who determine the dimension, firstly I study how to use the ER method, “bottom up” method, and activity theory method to identify the dimension in data warehouse, and some relevant knowledge about the three methods. Then, we apply the three methods to identify the dimension. After that, I evaluate the dimension identification results of the three methods according to the feedback from the healthcare organization to get their veracity and integrality. Finally, based on the results of my efforts, I arrive to the conclusion that the activity theory method can be applied to identify the dimension in data warehouse, and with the comparison to the other two traditional methods (ER model and “bottom up”), the activity theory method is more easy and natural to identify the dimension of a dimensional model.